Chapter 3: The Blessings

I might as well start with the Blessing that caused my first headache on Ariot.

R3

As a Blessing, this skill, including any of its evolutions and/or byproducts, cannot be reduced/removed. The Prerequisites of this Skill, including any of its evolutions and/or byproducts, have been removed.

⟨Advanced Reading Mastery Lv.42⟩

There are many that lose themselves while Reading, but there are few who can come to a complete understanding of what they are losing themselves to. Through countless hours, days, and years of study one can gain the ability to understand the true messages, meanings, and knowledge contained within whatever forms of literature they come across.The Skill can be toggled ON by Reading. The Skill is automatically toggled OFF when the user stops Reading.Receives Proficiency From:Read any item, whether the Language is known or not does not matter. Proficiency gained varies depending on the quality and contents of the item Read. Items that have been Read to full mastery in accordance to the Skill: [Living Librarium] will not grant the user any Proficiency.A ton of Byproduct Commands with different percentages lined up next to them.Byproduct Commands:⟨Speed Reading⟩ ⟨Efficient Reader⟩⟨Heightened Contemplation⟩⟨Reflective Mind⟩⟨Improved Memory⟩⟨Appraisal⟩⟨Decipher⟩⟨Language Mastery⟩⟨Loud Voice⟩⟨Speech⟩⟨Quiet Voice⟩⟨Writing Mastery⟩⟨Book Replication⟩⟨Writer’s Signature⟩Affects:When this Skill is ON:Gain skills 168% faster from items that can be Read.Regardless of state:Gaining Auxiliary INT is 70.8% easierGaining Auxiliary WIS is 23.6% easierGaining Auxiliary MNT is 47.2% easier

PS = (3.5 * S) + (200 * s)Proficiency Progress: 231P / 350.5P

This Skill was likely bestowed due to my reading phase in the last year of my life on Earth.

Should I be happy I got a “Mastery” Skill because of that, or should I be sad that nothing else from my life on Earth could trump that single year? Of course I should be happy.

As for the line about how this Skill can’t be removed because it’s a Blessing… I wonder what I would have done if I got a Command with negative effects? I didn’t get such a Command, so it doesn’t really matter, but I can’t help but wonder.

That R at the top… I have no idea what it means. “Rarity” maybe? There’s too little information, and it really doesn’t make much of a difference to me right now, so I’ll leave that mystery unsolved for the moment.

The “Prerequisites” that have supposedly been removed can still be seen on ⟨Quantitative Menu⟩.They’re supposed to be:

Auxiliary INT ≥ 60Auxiliary WIS ≥ 20Auxiliary MNT ≥ 40

Using the remaining memories of one year of reading Books on Earth, the system bumped this Skll up to Lv.43. The fact that I’m a “Strong Soul” probably also contributed to that level, but I wonder how high this Skill’s Level is for those who’ve dedicated their lives to reading — if such people even exist, that is.

Also, while the Skill is ⟨Advanced Reading Mastery⟩, there are actually messages for ⟨Basic Reading Mastery⟩ and ⟨Enhanced Reading Mastery⟩ reaching Lv.100 and Ranking up.

The Ranking is Basic>Enhanced>Advanced>(?) for this Command, it seems. There might be further Ranks, so referring to this Skill as ⟨Reading Mastery⟩ is probably the wisest decision. Looking at the chain of Ranks, it’s 1>2>3… So maybe R = Rank? The plot thickens — isn’t something I think with an inquisitive look on my face.

Now onto the Byproducts:

There’re a lot.

Even looking at the other Blessings, this Skill grants quite a lot of byproducts — all of which have had their requirements removed simply by being related to this Skill.

Isn’t that a bit cheap? Being able to access not only these already-present Byproducts right away, but another two “Mastery” Skills as well?

It couldn’t be that these Skills are the equivalent to the questionable products on the side of the convenience store which are never sold, so you can buy them 70% off throughout the year, right?

Well, I suppose even if they are it’s fine. It made my cloud wrangling quite difficult, though.

As for the specifics on the Byproducts, they’re mainly miscellaneous Commands used to make their respective Mastery better so I won’t go into a lot of detail. As an example ⟨Speed Reading⟩ is a direct Byproduct of ⟨Advanced Reading Mastery⟩; its effect is exactly as its name would make one think; it increases the speed of reading when it’s activated. Yep. It looks like this:

R1

The Prerequisites of this Skill, including any of its evolutions and/or byproducts, have been removed.

⟨Speed Reading Lv.NOVICE⟩

One of the basic Skills any Reader worthy of note will have mastered. Speed Reading allows one to increase the pace at which the user reads greatly, and is of worth to any studious book-worm.

Receives Proficiency From:1P per word on that which hasn’t been read by the user before. 2P per word on that which the user has Read before.

Prerequisites for the use of the Skill:Must have the Skill: ⟨Reading Mastery⟩ ≥ R1Must have the Skill: ⟨Language Mastery⟩ ≥ R1⟨Reading Mastery⟩ must be ONThe User must have knowledge of the Type of Language used to activate ⟨Reading Mastery⟩

PS = (7 * S) + (100 * s)Proficiency Progress: 0P/ 100P

Still, ⟨Speed Reading⟩ did contribute some information, at least. Unlike ⟨Reading Mastery⟩ which lists it as a Skill it receives proficiency from, ⟨Speed Reading⟩ obtains no Proficiency from ⟨Reading Mastery⟩.

If I’m going off of gaming logic, then that’s not a huge shock, as it’s usually along the lines of “Commands contribute to the Mastery, in return the Mastery enhances the Commands”.

Now, back to ⟨Reading Mastery⟩.

For its effects, I doubt I’ll be gaining any Skills from the tombstones (which are written in a Language I don’t understand), and I don’t think Charon would stuff a Command into his Book that unlocks upon reading it completely — even if that would match the current game-like reality I’m currently faced with.

Auxiliary Stats will be helpful… But I’ll have to read up on how to gain them — along with what they even are.

About that PS equation… That’s another thing I’m not entirely sure about. Considering the Proficiency progress has “P” as a subscript, “P” could be “Proficiency” with its own equation and unit. So PS would mean “Proficiency of… Something”.

Well, that’s me assuming that the P from the equation is “Proficiency” and not something like “Power” or “momentum” like on Earth. But what could “S” and “s” be?

I would reverse calculate to find the variable’s values, but because there’re two unknowns that wouldn’t reap much information.

Well, I don’t really need to know what the equation is. If they are involved with Proficiency, then all I’ll need to know is the information shown below the equation itself — the progress, right? In which case, I already have what I need, so there’s no need to delve any deeper.

R5

As a Blessing, this skill, including any of its evolutions and/or byproducts, cannot be reduced/removed. The Prerequisites of this Skill, including any of its evolutions and/or byproducts, have been removed.

⟨Oracle’s Eye Lv.13⟩

Those with the Skill ⟨Oracle’s Eye⟩ are those who have manifested the ability to predict the future far beyond regular Mortal Souls. It is often said that practitioners of this Skill (aptly named “Oracles”) are blessed by the Gods, and often arise during times of great change in order to lead the masses; for this reason, Oracles are almost always placed in seats of power so that their Kingdoms may live knowing what the future will bring.The Skill can be toggled by Speaking/Thinking the Skill Name or the designated keyword.

Receives Proficiency From:0.1P per second the Skill is ON.100P when a vision of the future has come to fruition.⟨Prognosticate⟩: 100%⟨Auger’s Sigil⟩: 100%Byproduct Commands:⟨Prognosticate⟩⟨Auger’s Sigil⟩⟨Sibyl’s Body⟩Effects:When this Skill is ON: Holy Skills/Spells will be gained 76% fasterHoly Skills/Spells will have their effects increase by 38% Regardless of State:+50% proficiency in Holy, Light, and Time attributes.+6.5% resistance to Holy and Light damage/effects. Visions will occur automatically in accordance to the state of the Skill: ⟨Auger’s Sigil⟩Prerequisites for the use of the Skill:See ⟨Sibyl’s Body⟩.

PS = (777 * S) + (1,500 * s)Proficiency Progress: 12,278P / 12,378P

This is probably as close as the System could get to my ability to predict the desires of others. I didn’t really consider my predictions strong enough to make me an Oracle, but… Seeing as it can’t be removed, I’ll just have to live with it.

Still, I’m a Zombie, so even if it was a “close fit” from my past life, is it alright if I have a Holy Skill? All of these byproducts are Holy too. Well, it’s also possible that my understanding of the world is wrong.

Who knows, maybe Zombies are this world’s “Priest” characters — is a suggestion I’m not even considering.

My FTH is 10, you know? That’s Faith, you know? The stat that usually depends on religious beliefs, and increases the strength of anti-undead attacks? Plus, that stat is given entirely from my Equipment Stats, so the FTH isn’t even inherently mine. Without this gear, I’d have 0 Faith.

How useless would a Priest be with 0 Faith? — the answer goes without saying.

Moving away from my pseudo-rant, I scan over at the comparatively-few Byproducts when lined up next to ⟨Reading Mastery⟩, and find that one of this Skill’s Byproducts: ⟨Sibyl’s Body⟩, appears to be the reason I was reborn as a Girl.

A “Sibyl” by Earth’s definitions is a woman capable of seeing into the future; upon looking into the Skill’s requirements (and thus ⟨Oracle’s Eye⟩’s requirements), one is that its user can only be born as a female. There’s also the other prerequisite which is preserving chastity, but as a Byproduct of a Blessing, it was removed as a requirement.

I suppose the “requirement removal” applied to everything but the Gender requirement. The system had placed a message saying that the “must be Female” requirement couldn’t be removed when looked at through 「Quantitative Menu」, too. I’d ask why, but I feel that I would plunge into insanity quite quickly if I started talking to myself out here in the Graveyard.

Will I make use of the ability to throw away my Chastity without a care in this world? — Of course not. There’s no need.

Also, regarding my change of gender from Male to Female: it doesn’t matter.

But my Little Johnny will cry? Where’s your Man’s Pride? What about the mental conflict Arc? — these thoughts were useless enough that I skipped over them without even taking a passing glance.

Back to ⟨Oracle’s Eye⟩, it gains Skill Proficiency by keeping it ON, and it can be toggled without any conditions unlike ⟨Reading Mastery⟩. Another difference is that despite it being a lower level than ⟨Reading Mastery⟩, it needs a lot more Proficiency. It also seems tremendously useful in comparison, so I’ll accept that increase in difficulty.

I feel as though I should start training the Skill by toggling it ON, but because I don’t know anything about this Skill other than its name and supposed effects, I’ll refrain.

R2

As a Blessing, this skill, including any of its evolutions and/or byproducts, cannot be reduced/removed. The Prerequisites of this Skill, including any of its evolutions and/or byproducts, have been removed.

⟨Strong Soul Lv.NOVICE⟩

The strength of your Soul has caught the eye of the Greater God of Souls: Charon, granting you better access to your Soul’s inherent powers. From this point on, you shall retain more memories when you pass on.

Receives Proficiency From:Using any System Command with the Soul Attribute will grant Proficiency in accordance to the Rank of the Command being used. The Proficiency gains for each Rank are listed below.

R0: 10PR1: 25PR2: 50PR3: 75PR4: 100PR5: 200P

These numbers are then subject to a Proficiency% depending on what Rank the [Strong Soul] Skill Tree is currently at. The Proficiency% modifiers for each Rank are listed below.

Charon’s gift. The requirements for gaining proficiency are to use Soul attribute Commands… But I don’t have any.

The effects are still good, even though I can’t make this Skill any stronger just yet. Despite needing Soul attribute Commands for the Skill to gain Proficiency, because it’s a Passive, it seems as though the effects will apply anyways.

Just like with games, Passives are great.

Also, I hypothesized that “R = Rarity”… But I have my doubts after looking at this skill. I don’t know how many Souls have been blessed by Charon, but I refuse to believe they’re more common than individuals who have ⟨Reading Mastery⟩ — even if Charon is highly sociable.

Well… Unless Ariot is illiterate. In that case ⟨Reading Mastery⟩ and most of its byproducts will become useless with exception of Auxiliary increases.

For now, I’ll consider R more likely to be “Ranks”. Once again, it doesn’t matter much, though.

With the “50% easier” bonus to getting Soul Commands, I’ll be able to properly train this Skill pretty soon… Probably. I’m a Zombie, so I don’t know the restrictions on attributes, but considering the fact that I have the Holy⟨Oracle’s Eye⟩, it’s possible that there are no species restrictions whatsoever.

Charon mentioned that Races would be written about in his Book, so I’ll look over it. I won’t be disappointed even if I find out that Zombies can’t use Soul Commands, though. I’d only get an MP buff and Soul resistance, but that’s not exactly a bad thing.

I also don’t know the method to obtain Commands, but I have no doubt Charon will have written something on that subject, so we’ll see.

For the Proficiency Progress… I’m not entirely sure why it’s out of 100, considering none of the information in the PS equation has something like “100” in it. So, either my guess was wrong, or maybe Lv.NOVICE is different from Lv.1. That’s just another thing to add to the list of consultations to take up with the Book below me.

Also, unlike other Commands, this one doesn’t seem to have any Prerequisites — even though they would have been removed anyways. It’s possible that the Prerequisite was “feel your Soul get incinerated by a Charon”, however.

Now, I saved the “best” for last.

R5

As a Blessing, this skill, including any of its evolutions and/or byproducts, cannot be reduced/removed. The Prerequisites of this Skill’s Byproduct: ⟨Apprentice of The True Dead⟩ and any of its evolutions and/or byproducts, have been removed.

⟨The Choice of the True Dead⟩

Long ago, during a war in the heavens which painted the skies crimson for centuries, a great Sage traveled the land spreading wisdom he had divined from wandering Gods. Part of his wisdom revealed the system of which the Soul is moved from one land to another indefinitely. Upon learning this, many were shocked as their religions did not condone his teachings, yet remained silent as he demonstrated skills gained from the Gods. Among those who heard was the King who had lost his only son to a falling star, and was mourning in public among his men. He refused to believe that Souls had no place of eternal rest, and that they would have to play as eternal pawns to the work of Gods. He then forced the Sage out of his country. Due to his defiance, he was cursed by the Sage to never speak known words again, driving his Kingdom to ruin. The Greater God of Souls: Charon, who had witnessed the King’s desire to see Souls no longer manipulated by the Gods, took notice of the King’s distress and gifted him with a portion of his powers. The powers he granted allowed the King to be close to his Son in any world he was reborn into (even though his Son would never recognise him again) among other things.But of course, the King’s Soul was not meant to live on forever. His ability to retain his memories was imperfect, and eventually he was fated to become naught more than a husk after millennia had passed. The time has come. The King’s Soul has fallen, and with it, his Blessings and Curse.Both the Blessings and Curse have been passed down to one who is willing to choose True Death — even at the face of what others would consider better alternatives.It has chosen you.

Effects:Death, Necromancy,Illusion, Holy, and Curse attributedCommands will be gained 500% faster. This effect cannot be reduced/removedProficiency in Death, Necromantic, Illusion, Holy, and Cursed attributes will have the minimum of +100%This effect cannot be reduced/removedResistance to Death, Necromantic, Illusion, Holy, and Cursed attribute damage & effects will have the minimum of +100%This effect cannot be reduced/removedResistance to Void and Soul damage & effects will have the minimum of +50%This effect cannot be reduced/removedResistance to Earth, Fire, Water, and Wind damage will have the minimum of +25%This effect cannot be reduced/removedThe Debuff: ⧼Abstract Speech⧽ has been applied This Debuff cannot be removedAll known words will become indecipherable and ever-changingThe Buff: ⧼Eternal Death⧽ has been appliedThis Buff cannot be removedThe User cannot receive the Status: Sanctified, or any other form of Undead-purification resulting in limitations upon Revival.

Prerequisites for the use of the Skill:The User’s Race must be categorized as an UndeadThis Prerequisite cannot be removedThe User must be chosen by the Skill: ⟨The Choice of the True Dead⟩ This Prerequisite cannot be removed

The Description is long. Said description contains a pointless amount of lore. The Skill is riddled with percentage bonuses. The Byproduct Commands come in multiple colors.

It’s a cheat! A cheat is here! — Is not something I cried out internally upon witnessing this Skill.

Still, with Command gains of multiple kinds 500% faster, 100% Resistances, 100% attribute Proficiencies, and Strong-looking byproduct Skills it’s easy to see that this Skill is powerful. Even with my limited knowledge of how the world works, I can tell that much.

The Debuff, while it seems like it’ll be a pain, isn’t exactly harsh enough to offset the overbearing Skill that is ⟨The Choice of the True Dead⟩. The curse’s biggest threat would have been its ability to disable me from chanting any Spells — but that’s splendidly ignored with ⟨The True Dead’s Casting⟩ which is — to summarize the Skill’s details after a quick look-over — “Silent Casting with bonus damage”.

Furthermore, this Skill “chose” me? What are you, a Holy Sword? — is not a question that comes to mind.

As a final thing to comment on: this Skill appears to be the reason why I’m a Zombie. It requires its user to be an “Undead”, so the System must have simply found a Corpse (a Female one, as to fulfil the requirement of ⟨Sibyl’s Body⟩) and reanimated it to fit with ⟨The Choice of the True Dead⟩. Otherwise, there was a mysteriously convenient and Soulless Zombie standing around.

To be born this way through two Skills’ requirements… I feel used — not.

It doesn’t particularly matter how I ended up being reincarnated. My Gender and Race are just pieces of data, to which I have no preference. Even if I did have a preference, there’s nothing I can do about it now, nor anything I could have done about it in the first place. Even Charon said that he couldn’t give me a designated body, so just accepting it would be the most efficient thing to do.

So far, this world seems to be the same as Earth in that I have “talent”, but have done nothing for it; but that cheat-like nature of my Blessings can only grow with “that”.

Mh.

That.

※ ※ ※

Ensig:So, I figure I’ll release a chapter of Undead Life(?) every week on Wednesdays — excluding Side Chapters — or more accurately “Supplementary Chapters”, which’ll mainly consist of information the MC didn’t care to go into.

On that note, there’ll be a Supplementary released right after this chapter… But it’s not done. I have to take all the Commands that weren’t mentioned and properly put them into Google Docs for storage/editing, then bring ’em over here and hope that the re-formatting won’t be too bad.

As for what “re-formatting” consists of for me, it’s essentially changing all of the legitimate-subscripts into appropriate sizes (the formatting in Google doesn’t like WordPress, so I have to <sub> everything into the HTML here), changing all of my Shift-Enters into regular Enters (there’s an actual difference, y’know), color-coating attribute Commands (some of which don’t show up properly due to this site’s background), and doing a final proofread.

>so I’ll referring to this Skill as ⟨Reading Mastery⟩ is probably the wisest decision.
either “that I’ll … is …” or “so to refer to this Skill … is”

Your choice to acknowledge a lot of stuff as superfluous and the write it out anyway is most peculiar.

>but I refuse to believe they’re less common than individuals who have ⟨Reading Mastery⟩
less → more

>unless Ariot is illiterate, whereas ⟨Reading Mastery⟩ and most of its byproducts will become
whereby; would become

>Affects vs Effects
Just to be clear, you do know the difference, right? Usually, skills list the effects, but a case could be made that they also list what they affect, so I do not want to outright dismiss it as wrong.